1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to provisioning, configuring, and monitoring edge QAM devices.
2. Background Art
A modern hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) cable network in its typical implementation includes fiber cable from a headend to a local network fiber node, and includes coaxial cable for the final signal distribution through a neighborhood. Modern two-way HFC infrastructures are capable of sending gigabytes of data per second to small pockets of homes in a narrowcast way.
Product and service offerings over broadband networks, including cable networks, have expanded in recent years. The cable networks are now used for additional products and services, for example, many cable networks now offer high speed data service in addition to video programming. In the modern HFC cable network, the headend infrastructure may include a cable modern termination system (CMTS) for providing data over cable services in addition to quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) infrastructure for providing video content. The video QAMs may connect to various content sources, while the CMTS connects subscribers to the provider network. Further, advances in technology allow some functionality to be provided from locations upstream or downstream of the traditional headend.
Video on demand (VOD) is one way to provide video content, and is available in certain broadband networks. To implement a video on demand platform, it is necessary for the architecture to address resource allocation and to address on demand session management.
In one approach to implementing an on demand platform, an architecture for on demand session and resource management is both distributed and scalable. A distributed and scalable architecture for on demand session and resource management is described in International Application No. PCT/US2004/022230, filed on Jul. 9, 2004, published as International Publication No. WO 2005/008419 A2, which entered the National Stage in the United States on Jan. 10, 2006 as U.S. application Ser. No. 10/595,039 and which is hereby incorporated by reference. The architecture may involve various types of on demand services including video on demand (VOD), network PVR, and switched broadcast video.
In an on demand platform, a transport network interfaces with edge QAM devices which interface with client systems. In order to be used, an edge QAM device is required to be configured. More specifically, the edge QAM device must receive configuration information relating to ports, addresses, radio frequency (RF) parameters, etc.
An existing approach to configuring an edge QAM device involves a configuration file that is downloaded to the edge QAM device. The configuration file is in a fixed format, and contains configuration information for a known set of features. Typically, vendors use a proprietary file format for the configuration file. In general, there is no common or standard method of provisioning, configuring, and managing edge QAM devices from different vendors. As a result, configuration and management of edge QAM devices can be difficult.